How to Design a Knitted Lace Edging Pattern

Written by daniel scott

Share

Tweet

Share

Pin

Email

You can design a knitted lace edging to put on sweater sleeves and borders. (Jupiterimages /Polka Dot/Getty Images)

You can design your own knitted lace edging. If you already know how to knit, you realise that lace is simply a combination of yarn-over and knit-together stitches to form a pleasing pattern. When you design your own pattern for a lace edging, you only need to design one repetition and then you can replicate it as many times as required to trim your project.

Skill level:

Easy

Other People Are Reading

Things you need

Knitting needles

Yarn

Graph paper

Pencil

Show MoreHide

Instructions

1

Determine your method for marking each stitch. You may just want to colour in the knits and leave yarn-overs blank, or you may create a detailed key like those found in many knitting charts. Some knitting charts use a blank block for a knit, a dot in a block for a purl, slash and backslash to represent knit two together and slip, slip knit. You can develop your own symbols, just remember to make a key to them so that you can easily see what you were thinking of when you originally made the lace border design.

2

Mark the initial stitches in your pattern design. Determine whether you will knit or purl the stitches on the other side of the work. Mark any cables or twists you want in the lace.

3

Make a trial swatch and check your design to see if you followed it correctly. If you followed your design correctly, make adjustments to your design if needed. It could take several repetitions of this process to get the lace to look the way you envision it.

4

Make a second trial swatch with your new adjustments. When you have designed your knit lace border to your satisfaction, write down all of your instructions in combination with your chart. Remember to note the size needles your worked your stitches on, the kind of yarn, the weight of the yarn, and the number of rows and stitches per inch or gauge. If desired, take a photo of your swatch, print the photo and store it with your pattern instructions.

5

Keep your designs in a loose-leaf notebook or other safe place so that you can refer to them and repeat them. A simple method of preserving your designs is to keep them in clear poly sleeves in a loose-leaf notebook. By doing this, you can remove the design to work on it, and still protect it from damage.